The Great Green Wall of Africa
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
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Here you can find some pictures from the planting process: http://blog.ecosia.org/post/109214958355/new-project-more-tr...
I could also provide some more if there's interest.
Have you read about the research into using microbes to transform the desert sand into a sandstone wall to span the Sahara Desert?
As for the actual tree-planting, it's done by WeForest (www.weforest.org).
I don't remember full details about this method, so don't quote me on that (I am a developer). It seems it's mostly about the soil preparation. They displace the top layer in a shape that's more efficient for water storage, preserving it from evaporating too fast, it lasts for longer.
As far as I remember seed selection and proper mixing of different species plays a huge role. The forest starts small (which is simple and efficient) from grasses, shrubs to bushes and finally to trees which then become mature.
This is a nice piece of nature hacking. I could try to find some sources on the details of tree planting tomorrow.
What is even nicer this is nearly 100% done by the locals so it empowers the local communities, gives them not only hope but real opportunities.
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Not to mention trees IIRC can cause clouds to form and thus bring more water to the region.
Only if you let them rot. If you were to burn the trees then you'd have a useful energy sourse and a significant amount (50% for an open fire, up to 90% in a specially designed burner) of the carbon would be turned in to charcoal which doesn't rot down to CO2 and be returned to the ground as fertiliser for the next round of trees.
Seriously, this is like, fossil fuels 101 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-North_Shelter_Forest_Prog...
"... a series of human-planted windbreaking forest strips (shelterbelts) in China, designed to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert."
This plant is not native to Africa, but only from Australian continent. I checked other sources, and found references to "Hardy, drought-resistant acacia trees now dig their roots into 330 miles of northern Senegal's Tessekere-Widu rural region. Planting began in 2008."
What are the dangers of planting a foreign tree monoculture without importing the wildlife that supports them? Why didn't they use a native African tree?
The German Acacia Wikipedia entry only contains the genus Acacia, while "Akazien" points to the tribe that is including all those plants that are normally known under the common name of acacia.
Btw, the picture of the English wikipedia also shows that the genus Acacia is only native to Australia. I guess they are planting Senegalia and not Acacia there. Same plant, it just got renamed 10 years ago.
The goal of reforestation in drylands is to increase shade to reduce evaporation. Once the acacia has provided enough quick shade they can (and hopefully will) plant other plants in the understory to increase diversity.
Anyway, I don't mean for this to be a giant cop-out for China. But its environmental record should be contextualized. An interesting part of that context is that it's one of the most rapidly advancing countries in terms of investments and capacity of sustainable energy. Policy makers definitely do not look the other way and ignore the problems as if they don't exist. It appears the environmental issues are acknowledged, but not always prioritized over trying to lift hundreds of millions of people into a lower-middle class from de facto poverty.
One may be more sympathetic to that than some of the global-warming denier policy makers we see in the west, who are either ignorant of the problem or prioritize economic goals while the average American or European already makes 10x more than the average Chinese. (who, again, use a significant chunk of this money to move their CO2 production out of the country, and to China, benefiting from the production but offloading the CO2 onto China's record, and in the process moving any affects of local pollution onto relatively poor Chinese. If it's waste, we call it toxic dumping and outlaw it. If it's air and water pollution from a factory that creates jobs, it's but an unfortunate side effect of globalism).
At least, that's the Chinese's perspective. There's more to it, but I think it's important to be aware of the above in any case.
They definitely turn their head the other way and even actively bury environmental issues. Look what happened with the smog station on top of the US embassy. They told them to take it down because they didn't like their citizens getting real air quality data.
no offense, but this looks exactly like any other mega development projects put on by white people - see for the road the world food programme has been building from the sea to central congo.
super ideas on paper, complete madness on site. most of that money will evaporate, most of the countries along the line are mere shapes on a map, drawn by white people, but reflecting any functioning structures.
when the europeans abandoned the colonies they failed to do one, crucial thing - they should have taken everything they brought to africa back with them. borders, names, government structures and yes, most "modern" infrastructure (railway, paved roads, water lines). all that crap left behind now gives western whites the illusion of a transaction between peers when they pour money into africa.
this is slowly happening now anyhow, tribal warfare is turning time backwards. from eritrea to sudan, to congo, to nigeria, etc etc etc. tribes that never belonged within one set of borders, drawn up by the english, french, belgians, germans, portuguese.
it would be actually much better if the west stopped pouring money into a region were most of it will end up fueling war. more people have died in the so called african world war than in all other conflicts since ww2 - combined. despite white people's guilt projects.
Building the green wall can prevent a lot of war, and solve problems that affect the entire planet, not just Africa.
The one crucial thing they failed to do? Not taking the water lines and railways etc, is the one crucial failure of colonialism in Africa? Talk about ignorant, with all due respect.
As for the connection between the west pouring in money and millions of deaths, as if the west funded the second Congo war... It's ridiculous. And please don't even try conflating legitimate FDI in tens of countries with procurement conflict minerals in Congo.
I won't even mention the standard 'africa is not a country' stuff. Although you'll obviously be aware of that, stating that the west shouldn't invest in Africa because of atrocities in Congo is saying the US shouldn't do business with France, because of the situation in the Ukraine. It's completely ridiculous.
Just look at plans like these, large solar energy infrastructure projects with European money, in part for the European market:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Morocco#/media/F...
and tell me this project shouldn't happen, because it fuels war. If anything, it'd bring Morocco and Algeria closer together through economic cooperation and interdependence for mutual benefit. Note that these are the exact same founding principles that largely initiated the European Union, a set of countries that waged brutal war for centuries yet have seen only peaceful cooperation between its members since its inception.
I guess as you said, most people do underestimate how big Africa is, and how diverse its political landscape.